Calm Before the Storm
by galaxyminded
Summary: When the Eclipse affects the twelve Celestial Spirits, Fairy Tail is up for the task to change everything back to normal. But during the battle against Virgo, Lucy gets sent to a place of the could have been, a world without magic... and she feels like she doesn't want to leave. NaLu AU of modern AU ed/filler arc. Cover is mine. (ch. 2 is fixed to normal view)
1. Ch 1: Lucy

Virgo was strong. Lucy had always known that. But never had she felt that more than now, lying on the hard, marble ground, every inch of her body sore.

She heard a mad crackling from above her. "Scream, Lucy Heartfilia, scream!"

Lucy grit her teeth and fought back tears. She had never thought of her celestial spirits as slaves, nor tools, or anything that was not under the category of friends; family, even. And yet, they chose a compromised freedom over her. Though she knew the Eclipse had altered them greatly, frustration still threatened to break her soul down. But she stood back up, her whip emitting gold, silver, and blue droplets of magic and the night sky. She was certainly a damsel, but she would not be in distress.

Virgo scowled. "I said scream!" She brought her whip down, and it took all of Lucy's strength to keep it from curling around her neck. The two whips tangled, and did not loosen, as though the whips were reminded that they were the other half of each other; twin whips. For a while they went back and forth, each whip hitting the ground or the wall, until finally, Virgo's whip curled around Lucy's ankles.

"We are stronger, we are mightier," she crackled, "and we will be free!"

Virgo flung Lucy across the room. She was too devastated to even scream, and so, she flew across the room silently. Everything seemed surreal, as thought it was all just a nightmare and she was now just lying in her pink sheets in her apartment after a hard day of work with Natsu and Happy. Though she hoped it was, she knew otherwise. Her twelve friends had to be stopped, but here she was, losing, Virgo's enraged and maniac eyes glared at her. Lucy couldn't help but think of a few weeks back, when those cobalt blue eyes were smiling…

Lucy felt her back collide with... glass? She sucked in her breath. No, she went right through it; something that froze her to the core of her body, but made her feel like she was wrapped up in a blanket by the fire place on a sunny day at the same time.

Lucy's vision blurred, the last thing she saw a sky of moving greens, and the sound of leaves rustling as the soft post-summer breeze blew.

But the last thing she _felt_ was a presence... that made her warm and excited on the inside.

_His._

She reached out, but too late. Her fingers grasped air, and then nothing.


	2. Ch 2: Natsu

A pretty girl lying unconscious on a park path isn't something that happens every day. So when Natsu stumbled across her, he decided to check if she was still alive.

First he nudged her with his shoe, lightly on her back. She didn't move.

Second, Natsu slapped her softly on her cheeks. No reaction.

Third, he smelled her for the scent of the dead. Nope.

So he brought her home.

The place Natsu called home wasn't much. It was located at a top of a small hill, and it seems as though it might break down any second. Not to mention inside. It looks as though a miniature tornado has passed through. Remnants of food were scattered here and there, dishes, bones, clothes, everything was left everywhere. Visitors would tell him, 'oh if only you had the magic of cleaning'.

Magic...

Natsu loved magic. His father, Igneel, used to teach him some neat, easy tricks, until he just left without a trace. He still admired it, sure, but it also brought back memories that were just now painful.

He was prevented from thinking more about it when he heard a loud crash from the corner as a tower of books (aka books Erza had told him to read but never has) tumbled. From the heap of fallen books, poked out a blue head. His cat, Happy, squiggled out of the mountain of paper and trotted over to where the girl lay. Happy looked curiously at her, observing her, and then suddenly started nudging her with his paw. Punch by punch, the cat's fist's power increased, until Natsu finally stopped him. The girl was sure to have a bruise there.

Still, the pretty girl did not wake.

Natsu tried everything. He got a frying pan and a large spoon and started banging it together, enhanced with his singing that sounded more like someone laughing while choking on their own saliva than that of something you hear in a choir. He decided to splatter ice cold water onto her face. Jump on the bed. Rock her back and forth.

Nothing.

He was starting to get really worried. What if she really was dead? His sense of smell has never failed him before though. Had he accidentally killed her during his attempt to do the opposite? Should he just wait a little bit more?

Natsu ruffled his pink hair in frustration. Perhaps he should call Erza! But no, if she notices those unread books he would be in trouble... as in have a close-to-death experience. There was no way he was going to ask for help to that stripping pervert, so who? Levy? She's not in town right now... Mirajane? Then again Natsu would just get scolded about how messy his house was. Wendy, he supposed, could. She has a gift to heal; she had taught him tricks to keep his meals in his stomach whenever he was traveling.

Natsu sat down with a sigh. By the time he got any of his friends here it would be dark, and he couldn't just leave her here alone with a blue cat for company. He glanced at the golden haired girl.

He froze.

A pair of teary, chocolate brown eyes stared back at him.


	3. Ch 3: Lucy

Lucy didn't exactly wake up just like _that_. During her sleep, she wandered through something like a murky lake. A bottomless, cold, dark lake. Here and there, small orbs of light would appear, and she would follow, but she seemed to be stuck in the same spot whenever she tried. Lucy thought of swimming up, but she was either somewhere very deep or there was no up or down or right or left. Just where she floated aimlessly at that moment.

She was lost, in a maze that had no paths, no walls, or perhaps even a goal.

The orbs of light set the water in an eerie mood. It did nothing to help Lucy's anxiety. In fact, it made her worry more. Shadows danced around her and clawed at her feet. It was as if they wanted to pull her down, forever and eternally lower. A second later, the orbs started moving. It was flowing further and further up. No._ She_ was going down. At that realization, she couldn't breathe. It became cropped. Oxygen and carbon dioxide was going through her mouth at the same time. Suddenly, her surroundings brightened, and she could see where she had been this whole time.

Lucy had been wrong. She wasn't in water, she hadn't been swimming, but now she thought perhaps the lake was a better place. Lucy was flying. Or falling, to be exact; like an angel who had her wings ripped off in the middle of her flight. One by one, the orbs that had done nothing but annoy Lucy grew bigger and bigger and hotter, so hot that though the closest orb to her was miles away, Lucy could feel the scorching heat that was being exerted. More and more appeared all around her.

And the sky… the sky was especially peculiar. However, it was fitting for the moment. The heavens were red. Deep crimson; the colour of blood. All around, it was the colour of fire.

_Have I been sent to Hell?_ Lucy wondered.

Time slowed down. It was like déjà vu. But why? Had she fallen from the sky more than once in the past? That wasn't quite it…. She could remember words. The sensation of something rough yet smooth at the same time between her fingers. The familiar weight propped onto her hands as she sat on a bench. A girl with sapphire hair looking at her with round, childlike eyes, expectant.

Of course; she had _read_ it. In the books that she loved, with her best friend she treasured, in the Great Hall of her guild.

Of Fairytail.

Memories flowed like water through cracks in a broken dam. First a trickle; bits and pieces of books, libraries, shopping, and all the little things in life. Then, bigger events played in her head. Meeting Nastu and Happy, Erza, Gray, Wendy, Gajeel, and everybody else in the guild one by one. Her Celestial Spirits, her parents, the Fairy Tail in Edolas, Tenrou Island, and…

_The Eclipse. _

BOOM.

_Her fight with Virgo. _

BOOM. BOOM.

Everything came back. Lucy's body pounded. Her head was imploding little by little. Her limbs suddenly became heavy. But her heart. _Her Heart_. It was being squeezed by a hand, the hand of Tragedy, Sorrow, and Regret, all at once. Her face contorted in pain. Her back arched and she screamed. A horrible, ear-splitting scream—

_Natsu! Everybody! Where are you! Help… me…_

But her scream was drowned by the balls of fire.


	4. Ch 4: Natsu

One word to describe her: Gold.

Natsu wasn't sure why, but to him, everything about her appeared to be glowing. Her eyes, hair, skin, all her features lit up his world. All this made him wonder what her smile was like. Since she'd woken up an hour ago, Natsu had gotten her out of bed, cleaned up a little, and was currently out for a walk. But her expression stayed the same; sad. She would smile at him whenever he did something nice, or whenever she caught him staring her, but it wasn't real. That smile, though still very much pretty, was only on the surface. It had no depth to it, and Natsu was determined to get her to smile.

He couldn't blame her for being sad though. After all she could remember nothing about before he had found her lying on the ground unconscious. Whatever it was, it wasn't pleasant for her, Natsu knew, because drop after drop the tears kept on coming for a while after she opened her eyes. However, the girl knew nothing to why she was crying.

"Where are we going?" Her voice jolted Natsu back to the present.

"There's a place where we go all the time. It's just at the end of the road."

"'We'?"

"Yeah; my friends and I. Usually we're at Fairy Tail, but when we get a break we go there." He looks over and sees the confusion in her expression. "Fairy Tail is what people around here calls the fire department. There's not only fire-fighters in there though. There are police, rescuers, doctors, and a lot more."

She gazed off into the distance as a cloudy look covered her eyes. "That's nice."

Natsu being Natsu, he didn't notice her expression in her words. "Yeah," he smiled his trade-mark grin, all teeth. "If we're lucky, some of them will be at the cafe and you can meet them. Well, unless you see Gray. That pervert needs to learn how to keep his clothes on."

Before he knew it, they were there, standing in front of a squat building with a small balcony. It had roofs a few shades lighter than Natsu's hair, with faded, ochre wood planks covering the floor and walls. Inside, it was bustling with energy. All kinds of people got together, talking and working. This was Natsu's second favourite place in the world.

He spotted Elfman and Lisanna at a table. He waved to them looked beside him to speak to the girl-

She was on the ground, clutching her head in her hands, hair entangled with her pale fingers, and a dreadful expression on her face. The girl's mouth was shaped into an 'O' in a silent scream. Her eyes were shut tight, and there were tears pooling at the corners. It cried out 'agony' in all ways possible.

Natsu dropped down beside her and tried to so0th her with no avail. Her breathing was chopped and irregular.

"Hey," Natsu screamed. "Hey!"

Mirajane, the bartender, came running up beside him. There was already a crowd forming a circle around them but Natsu didn't notice his surroundings at all, too worried about the girl.

Mirajane slowly kneeled down beside Natsu. "What happened?"

"I took my eyes off of her for just a second and then she was on the ground like this." His blood was boiling, head pounding, confused. "She just woke up from being unconscious, Mira-san."

The bartender looked at Natsu with gentle eyes. "It's alright, Natsu, I can take care of her from here." She scooped up the girl, her golden hair stuck to her face with sweat, eyes wide open, looking but not seeing. Mirajane walked back inside, and all Natsu could do was watch the limp body in her arms.


End file.
